The present invention relates to a packaging machine, in particular a case packer.
The invention finds application advantageously in complete production lines for packaging products or commodities of whatever type, and in particular for packaging tobacco products such as cigarette cartons into cases, or boxes.
Conventionally, the starting material for packaging products of the type in question consists in a collapsed tubular blank of corrugated cardboard, presenting slits and precreased fold lines, such as can be erected to produce the typical parallelepiped shape of a case or box. These flat box blanks are conveyed generally to the packer ordered in stacks.
Case packers of prior art type comprise an erector unit by which each collapsed blank in turn is opened up and spread to the point of assuming a tubular parallelepiped appearance, and a feed unit by which the single blanks are taken up one by one from an infeed station forming part of this same unit, and transferred to the erector unit.
The machine further comprises a packing station where the boxes are filled, located adjacent to the erector unit, which is supplied with products by a further feed unit positioned on one side of the machine.
Consequently, when designing a packaging line, care must be taken to adapt the installation of the case packer to suit the position of the product feed unit, or alternatively, the manufacturer must order and purchase a machine specifying the side from which the products are to be supplied.
Once filled and sealed, the cases or boxes are quality controlled to verify their weight and integrity, before proceeding along a horizontal path at a height accessible to the operator, or along an upwardly directed vertical path.
In this latter instance, the machine is rendered more compact.
In operation, the quality control procedure may reveal that the occasional box has not been filled correctly or sealed properly, and consequently must be discarded. In this situation, when affecting a vertical case packer of prior art type, the operator must stop the machine and suspend the packaging process, then climb up to retrieve the rejected item, with the result that production time is lost, and the operator is also placed at personal risk.
The object of the present invention is to provide a case packer that will be unaffected by the drawbacks mentioned above.
In particular, the object of the present invention is to provide a machine that will be both versatile and adaptable to any type of box-filling line, regardless of which side the products happen to approach the packing station.
A further object of the invention is to provide a case packer of simple and compact design, such as will allow of eliminating down time in the event of boxes being rejected, and avoid exposing the operator to personal risk when retrieving items flagged as substandard.
Yet another object of the invention, finally, is to provide a case packer such as will allow a swift and simple changeover to box blanks of different size or pattern.